Lore
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BANDITS CLARA Many who have heard of the Bandits are told the tale of Clara, a villager who was burned at the stake, and whose death somehow summoned the Black Talons to the world. If you’re a sympathiser to the cause, Clara is a beautiful, yet humble woman who is wrongly accused by a jealous Lord; those who witnessed her death were inspired to rise against oppression. If you’ve been on the wrong end of a Bandit blade, you might subscribe to the less flattering rendition, wherein Clara is an ugly chaos hag who, upon being finally put to death for all her hideous crimes, mutters one last curse on the world, turning all who heard it into ravaging psychopaths. The truth is far less engaging: Clara was the name of a small village on the eastern border of a once prosperous nation. Her people were all things people can be: humble, impetuous, conniving, honest, scurrilous, wanton, noble, ignoble; but most of all, they were hungry. For the most part a community of farmers, Clara’s crops were being used to feed the local Lord’s armies in a campaign that had lasted a half a generation, and one which had no direct impact on those actually growing the food. Eventually, to feed their families, a few farmers decided not to give over everything they grew. Others, meanwhile, actually took to the roads, trying to procure (by force or other means) anything that might mean a less difficult existence. When the Lord heard of the lawlessness in his lands, he responded with (what some might have consuidered 'undue') force. Feeling jaded and abused, the farmers struck back in the only way they knew they could really hurt the Lord: they burned down their own village and took to the forest their village was pressed against; they were no longer going to be the starving cooks for a nations armies. THE TRIALS That forest was, of course, the now infamous Black Talon forest, and their presence in it did not go unnoticed: Thetis, a forest nymph of some power, had long since abandoned the barbaric world of men for seclusion in the depths of the wood. Being immortal and patient, she decided to take her time dispatching these interlopers. She set them tests of character, certain they would fail and perish in the process. She was surprised, however, at the how many passed, or at least came close to doing so before falling victim to her machinations. She looked into their hearts and came to know their troubles, their sorrow and their pain; their protectors had used, abandoned and abused them; humanity was indeed rotten, and these wretched creatures were the unfortunate victims. It was then that she made herself known to them, the first time she had done so for a mortal in many centuries. Whilst she was still unwilling to leave the forest, she gave the humans sanctuary, shielding them from the Lord’s patrols and taking vengeance on the knights who formed them. The former villagers of Clara had now found a new home, one in which they were their own masters, and bore the fruits of their own labour. In time, despite the fact that few newcomers passed Thetis' standards, the number of the Bandits of the Black Talon Forest (as they were now being called) grew, culminating in the notorious force we know today.